by Katy Colins
Henry’s box was back on the coffee table, a macabre comfort blanket. He was never coming back. I couldn’t kid myself any longer. The loneliness that I’d felt for years, buried deep within me had rocketed to the surface. I missed him so much. I felt like my ribs would fracture with the grief held in my chest. I was wearing Henry’s stained hoody, fooling myself that it still smelt of him, after all these years of sitting in his memory box.
As I breathed in the slightly musty scent I felt a funny clarity settle around me. I knew what I needed to do, to begin to make a dent in the emotions I was drowning in. If I was going to face my fears head-on, then I knew where I needed to go. It was going to hurt a hell of a lot, but I had little to lose. Ms Norris would be proud of me for taking control of my own destiny, stopping myself from wallowing, and getting out of my comfort zone. I just hoped I could use her belief in me to go ahead with it. Without wanting a second of this courage to fail, I opened my laptop, but was stopped from booking my train tickets by the trilling of my doorbell.
‘I’m coming,’ I called. Who on earth could this be? I debated letting it ring, but knew I had to start making changes.
‘Callum?’ I gasped.
Callum took a step back from my doorstep. He looked terrible.
‘C-can I come in? I’m sorry, I know you’re going through your own stuff at the moment. Did you get the flowers by the way?’ He didn’t pause for me to answer. Instantly I knew that he knew. ‘It’s just I… I could really do with talking to you. It’s stupid, but I didn’t know who else to turn to.’
I nodded and held the door open for him, following him into the lounge, wringing my hands.
‘Do you want a drink?’
I could have laughed at how absurd it was. Me playing hostess. Him pacing the messy lounge. He shook his head.
‘I think Abbie was having an affair.’
He stopped and looked at me, wide eyes brimming with pain. I almost forgot to breathe at the sight of his wounded expression.
‘I’ve been going through her things. I’d put it off for as long as I could. There just seemed to be so much of her in the house that I didn’t know where to start,’ he babbled, not looking at me. ‘I found a bank account in Abbie’s name that I’d never known existed before…’
The new life baby fund, exactly like Daniel had said.
‘Grace? I thought you’d tell me not to jump to silly conclusions, that I was being ridiculous…’
‘Yes. I mean, yeah, you probably are.’
In an instant his body language changed. He stared me in the eye.
‘Grace. Do you know something?’
It was all I could do to nod. What was the point of lying anymore?
‘What?’ His jaw tensed. ‘What do you know?’
I felt the blood drain from my face. I wished I’d let that doorbell ring and ring until it broke, rather than be faced with this. I’d been a coward but there was no escaping now.
‘I –’
‘It’s true, isn’t it? She was having an affair.’
I nodded slowly.
‘How do you… Wh-what do you know?’ he stuttered. ‘Wait –’ He pressed his fingers tightly against his temples and paused. ‘Do you know who he is?’
‘Daniel.’
Confusion ran across Callum’s face. He sat down with a thump, the air escaping from the sofa as he did. The irony that he was sat directly under Daniel’s painting was not lost on me.
‘Daniel?’ I could see his brain speeding through some virtual memory address book, trying to locate a Daniel. ‘I don’t know anyone –’
He stopped.
‘Daniel Sterling? The artist?’ he clarified pointlessly. We both knew he’d worked it out.
I nodded slowly.
He smashed his fist on the coffee table. ‘Fucker! Wait. You knew she was cheating on me with him?’ He spat. ‘How did you know? You don’t even know me at all!’
I let that hurtful comment pass. Where to begin? I could hardly tell him that I’d been snooping through his dead wife’s Facebook albums and had suspected something wasn’t right. That Abbie’s lover had confessed everything, sitting right where he was sitting. He glared at me, waiting for me to say something.
I let out a deep sigh. It was time to confess. ‘In my job I use Facebook to help research ways to make the funerals I plan more personal.’
His brow knotted in confusion at my apparent change of subject.
‘It’s a bit of a secret weapon, that allows me to be creative in coming up with ideas for a unique service. I did this with Abbie but, well, I kind of got lost in her life for a little bit…’
His fingers pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘What? You stalked my wife’s Facebook page?’
‘I do it to help the families. To try and bring some of the personality across of the person they’ve lost. I tried to be helpful…’ I trailed off. It sounded wrong, stupid and inappropriate.
He scrunched his face up, trying to get his head around it. ‘So you knew all about my life, about Abbie, before we even became friends?’
I tried not to feel a glimmer at hope at him calling what we had friendship.
‘Like I said, I got a little lost in her life. It all just seemed so perfect and, well…’ My cheeks flamed in embarrassment at what I was about to say. I hung my head low and stared at my socks. ‘I wanted to be a bit more like her.’
He let out this hysterical sort of laugh. ‘I’ve heard it all now.’
‘It sounds weird, I know, but my heart was only ever in a good place. I just wanted to be more confident like her, and have more of a life than the one I had. I never told you that we share the same birthday. It’s ridiculous, but it felt like we were connected somehow. However, the more I got to know Abbie, and you, I discovered that some things weren’t what they seemed. I overheard rumours that she had been friendly with another man… I thought it was Owen, the guy she worked with.’ How wrong I had been there. ‘But it was Daniel, there was this love knot brooch, and, well…’ It didn’t matter how I knew. I knew.
He let out a hollow laugh that boomed across the silent room.
‘This is unbelievable. Here I was worrying myself sick, thinking I’d done something to upset you as you’d gone silent on me. Racking my brain to think if I’d said something I shouldn’t have, trying to work out the reason you would just go AWOL after the time we’d spent together. Finding out from Raj about Ms Norris, and worrying that you were doing OK, when all along you’ve known that my wife has been shagging some other bloke. Were you ignoring me out of pity, or laughing at me? Look at this loser who doesn’t even know his wife’s been playing away for god knows how long!’ he yelled.
‘No. It’s not like that. I –’
‘Save it.’ He got to his feet. ‘I can’t believe this. I trusted you, Grace.’
I jumped to my bare feet. ‘Where are you going? Wait, Callum, we need to discuss this!’
He threw his head back. The twisted look he flashed would haunt me forever. ‘Discuss this? Are you fucking kidding me! I thought you cared –’
‘I do!’
He scoffed. ‘Funny way of showing it. I can’t stand liars, especially not ones who go around pretending to be so fucking virtuous. Oh look at me, Grace Salmon, with my strange name, strange habits and strange job. Aren’t I just wonderful doing such a selfless thing for everyone in the world?’ He put on a high-pitched accent, trying to mimic my voice. ‘Bullshit. You’re just as fucked up as everyone else.’
He raced down the stairs and threw the door open. My heart was beating so hard I thought it would break out of my skin.
‘Callum! Where are you going?’ I shouted behind him, but it was too late.
I flung cushions around, trying to find my phone. My fingers trembled as I dialled his number. It rang once then went to voicemail. The next time I tried it went straight to voicemail. Damn it!
I paced the living room. My heartache was in the past, long dead and buried; Callum’s was fresh and exp
osed. How could I not have told him the moment I found out? For him to find out like this, and accuse me of siding with Daniel, made me feel physically sick.
Daniel and Abbie knew that what they were getting involved in would only end in sadness for Callum. No one could have predicted just how catastrophic their actions would be, or the path of devastation they would leave behind. However, I was part of their mess whether I liked it or not. I couldn’t stick my head in the sand any longer. I needed to try and fix it.
Chapter 38
I shoved my feet into my trainers and ran to my car, slamming my key in, tyres screeching as I sped off. I knew exactly where to go to find Callum before he did something he regretted. Blood pulsed through my temples. My hands gripped the steering wheel so tight that my knuckles turned white. What were all these people doing on the road at this time!? I revved up, soaring past an old woman fastidiously sticking to the speed limit in her Honda Jazz. I narrowly managed to tuck back onto my side of the road just before a lorry on the other side blared its horn. I didn’t even notice how close we were. I just needed to get there, to find Callum.
‘Move it!’ I yelled as a white transit van blocked the road with an amateur three-point turn.
My head throbbed. I clenched my eyes shut just to try and block the pain thumping in my temples.
The van driver gave me a dirty look as I pressed the heel of my palm firmly into the horn for the third time. He’d overegged the reverse, so was trying to compensate for it and perform a sixteen-point turn to unwedge himself. After what felt like an eternity, he rejoined the flow of traffic. Thankfully he took the next right, taking the corner extra slowly just for my benefit. I zoomed on ahead, gritting my teeth.
My suspicions proved correct when I saw Callum’s car parked in the empty car park. The place had closed hours ago. I wondered how many times Abbie had been there at that time of night, her high heels clacking on the cobbles that I now flew up, as she followed her heart to be with her lover.
I’d called Daniel. His number was on the business card he’d given me. He didn’t answer, so I’d left a garbled voicemail telling him that Callum knew and was probably on his way to him right now. I hoped he’d picked up the message. I had betrayed his confidence, so I should at least give him some warning of the Callum tornado spinning his way. Grief tangled with anger and betrayal was a recipe for disaster.
The place felt eerie without shoppers milling around. The door to Daniel’s studio was open, but no lights shone out over the dark pavement. My stomach fizzed with nervous adrenalin at what I was about to be faced with.
I had to squint in the near gloom. The shape of a man was sitting upright on the sofa. I clumsily felt against the inside wall for a light switch. Soon the room was basking in the low orange glow from a trendy floor lamp. My eyes focussed on the figure. Callum. I let out a breath I hadn’t realised I’d been holding and took in the state of the room, half expecting to see Daniel unconscious somewhere. His studio had been smashed up but there was no sign of him. Callum had clearly taken his fury out on this place after discovering Daniel wasn’t here. His rage was spent on the impressive sculpture that I’d admired, the love knot, the secret that had been staring me in the face from the moment I’d walked into Daniel’s studio. Huge chunks of it were now carpeting the floor. An armchair lay on its side and light awkwardly pooled on the floor from another lamp that had been knocked over. Callum was hunched on the sofa, his head in his hands, shoulders slumped forward. He didn’t make any effort to move or acknowledge me.
‘Callum?’ I tentatively stepped over shards of twisted polished metal and fragments of ceramic. He didn’t move. I desperately wanted to fling my arms around him and tell him it was going to be OK. There was something in his hands, it looked like a colourful flyer, half scrunched in his clenched fists.
‘Callum? Please talk to me.’
‘I hadn’t been confused about the Thai restaurant. She’d clearly been there with him,’ he said, his voice low and shaky.
‘Sorry?’
He sat back, eyes red and tear stains on his cheeks. He looked like he’d been in a boxing ring, dark marks under each swollen, puffy eye and a quivering bottom lip. He raised his hands in my direction. It was a postcard. Wish you were here! in cheerful retro-style font across a sun-drenched Brighton beach.
‘I don’t understand…’
‘It seemed meaningless at the time.’
I nodded, wanting him to keep on talking. He stared past me, looking at nothing.
‘Shona and Greg Fitz, friends of ours, had come round for dinner. It was St Patrick’s night. Abbie had gone to loads of trouble preparing an Irish menu and decorating the room with four-leaf clover bunting, not caring that none of us had a drop of Irish blood in us – any excuse for a party. Chat turned to holidays. With Abbie travelling a lot with her job, and me working hard on the pitch for the Stratton Estate, we’d not taken a proper trip away for ages. We listened to Shona go on and on about some wonderful five-star resort in Cancun they’d just come back from. Greg pissed her off by shattering this picture-perfect trip by admitting that the only thing they couldn’t control was the awful weather, that next time they’d stay in the UK.’
I tried to keep up with what he was saying.
‘Abbie laughed, saying how there was nothing wrong with the UK. That smile had caught me off guard; the week before she’d been thumping around the house complaining about everything. I’d presumed it was her time of the month, her mood swings increasing over the years, all her anger directed at me. But she’d been on great form all evening, probably to do with the prosecco she was knocking back. She went on about how Brighton was a favourite place of ours, especially this Thai restaurant by the front.’
I blinked rapidly at the picture he was painting.
‘I told her I’d never been to Brighton. Abbie kept repeating how she couldn’t believe I didn’t remember. How we’d sat by the window and I’d made a joke about how in Thailand they have this vegetable that’s called Morning Glory, or something stupid like that. Both Shona and Greg laughed along, but I could see Abbie growing more irritated by the fact I couldn’t remember this trip. She gave my hand a tight squeeze and asked if I was losing my marbles already. For an easy life I said of course I remembered. I smiled along, but there was a complete blank where this memory Abbie was adamant we’d shared was. She must have confused me with him. She must have been there with him. She’d been too drunk to notice her slip up. I knew I hadn’t been losing it!’
He rushed to the toilet and threw up.
I stepped over Daniel’s business cards that were scattered to the floor and picked up the crumpled postcard. On the back was a short note written in black pen. No stamp, postmark or address.
Our special place. Forever, A and D x
I thought of the photo I’d seen of Abbie standing at the end of a pier. Brighton Pier. Both she and Daniel in their secretive love pins, the sign of their members-only club. I tried to block out the retching sounds Callum was making, and poured him a glass of water from a mug that I’d hurriedly washed out. He flushed the toilet and staggered back to slump on the sofa, every movement a Herculean effort.
‘I’m so so sorry, Callum,’ I said, gently pushing the water in his direction. He gulped it in one and slammed it back on the table, blocking out the scene on the postcard. ‘I don’t know what else to say.’
‘It was all for nothing.’
‘What?’
‘My marriage. Our life. I feel so fucking humiliated. I’ve been wasting my tears on her. Grieving for a woman who I didn’t know! For what? For nothing! Do you know what? I’m glad she’s dead!’
He let out this painful sound, like an animal crying in agony. His shoulders juddering violently, unable to hold back the raw emotion any longer. Sobs wracked his body. He heaved and gulped at thin air. Something had broken inside him and I didn’t know if it would ever be fixed.
I quickly moved next to him and placed a hand on his shuddering back,
his chest expanding with each heaving sob. I felt tears drip down my cheeks too. I didn’t know how to comfort him, to make it better. I couldn’t bear to see his pain, knowing I was a part of the deceit too. He was a man broken by lies, betrayal and damaged pride. The man who’d stoically sat opposite me in my office all those months ago, holding back his shock and grief, had now been broken into a thousand pieces.
‘What the hell am I supposed to do now?’ he asked. He balled his fists into his eyes and rubbed them, trying to stop the flow of tears. ‘She’s fucked me over from beyond the grave.’ He finally fixed his eyes on mine and angrily pulled away from my touch. ‘You kept this from me. You knew and you kept this from me. I thought I could trust you.’
He got to his feet, disappointment palpable from every pore. The look he gave me wounded me more than any weapon could.
‘Callum. You can trust me. Please let me explain!’
He began pacing around the room, crunching china shards underfoot.
‘Go on then.’ He dropped on the sofa opposite and glared at me.
I bit my lip.
‘Grace?’
I nodded and took a deep breath. ‘They got together because of a chance encounter when she was decorating your home.’
‘But that was over two and a bit years ago…’
I nodded.
He didn’t say a word. His mouth flickered with tension.
‘They used to meet here or combine work trips when they went away.’
‘And the money? Seeing as you know everything else, do you know about that too?’
He meant Abbie’s large and secretive bank account.
‘They were planning on starting a new life together. She was going to leave you and move away with him to live near her parents.’ I couldn’t tell him about their plans to have children. ‘Daniel confessed all of this to me. I was going to tell you!’
He ignored my hollow insistence.
‘Her parents knew? Was that why they didn’t come to her funeral?!’